


The Power of Mabel Juice feat. Stanford Pines

by Sob3rNerd73



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Building on a Roof, Fluff, Ford - Freeform, Ford Pines is none of these things, Gen, Humor, My brain went 'what if Ford had Mabel Juice' and I wrote this on auto-pilot, Shenanigans, Stan Pines is also tired, Stan Pines is annoyed, but not rly, he is just, inventing, rated T because swearing, sprinkled with angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 22:34:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28535952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sob3rNerd73/pseuds/Sob3rNerd73
Summary: Ford tries Mabel Juice.I wrote over 1000 words based on this random prompt. The only reason it's rated T is because Stan deserves the right to swear and I will give it to him.
Relationships: Ford Pines & Mabel Pines, Ford Pines & Stan Pines
Comments: 9
Kudos: 77





	The Power of Mabel Juice feat. Stanford Pines

**Author's Note:**

> This is purely self-indulgent nonsense because minor writer's block. This is my first draft I wrote while procrastinating on homework. I did enjoy writing this, it was fun to think that Ford probably has high caffein tolerance but really low ... Mabel Juice tolerance.

“It’s Mabel Juice!”

Ford eyed the offered beverage dubiously as he sat hunched over a spectrograph he was modifying on his basement desk. It was surprisingly difficult to mold the tool to measure something other than soundwaves, and he had considered starting from scratch multiple times. He had been irked about it all day and knew he looked frustratedly haggard, because Mabel tended to gravitate towards those that she felt needed a bit of a boost. She really was wonderful.

At the same time, he trusted her creations that were meant to be consumed about as much as he trusted his own. Especially since her latest one was a neon pink horror complete with plastic toys, ice cubes, and sparkles.

_ It’s like if coffee and nightmares had a baby. Heh, it’d be right up you alley, wouldn’t it Poindexter?  _ Stan had said when Ford was curious about Dipper passively mentioning it.

He supposed his twin had a point.

So Ford gingerly took the drink from his grand-niece’s outstretched hand and tried to work up the courage to drink it.

“And this is supposed to… energize, yes?” He asked.

“Yep! A Mabel-made recipe guaranteeing hours of awake-ness! It’s what I use to keep going instead of caffeine, which really isn’t good for you, you know.” Mabel replied.

“Well, I’m not sure this would be much healthier…” Ford grit his teeth in determination and took a swig.

It tasted like sugar, strawberries, plastic, and chocolate somehow. He had eaten and drank much worse, that was for certain. Nevertheless, he felt his tastebuds physically recoil at the sheer  _ sweetness _ of the stuff. How did Mabel drink this on a near daily basis? Admittedly, he did feel a bit more like an awake and functioning person, and sugar was probably better for his stomach than caffeine…

Ford took another drink and finished half the glass.

“Thank you for this… bizarre concoction, Mabel. I don’t know if I will recover my sense of taste by the end of today, but it works as an enlivening agent.”

“Always trust in the power of me!” Mabel winked. “Good luck with whatever you’re doing!” She ran into the open elevator with a cheerful wave.

Ford turned back to his task and grimaced before grabbing a pair of pliers and toiling once more. Except, it wasn’t nearly as difficult as he remembered it being. His initial idea involving redoing the circuitry was all wrong! It still needed to be redone, but differently, and perhaps he could remake the wires with something other than copper with less electrical resistance, and maybe rework his entire plan and allow for switchable settings to measure soundwaves, lightwaves, brainwaves…

In what seemed like no time at all, and one last drink of Mabel Juice, his work was done and completely functional. Smiling proudly, the scientist suddenly found himself with nothing to do. He had several pet projects going on simultaneously but he was in the mood for something new. Maybe he could go searching for creatures with Dipper, or make abstract art with Mabel.

But doing those things would still leave a part of him wondering what to do next, and one of the things Ford hated that wasn’t boredom was the contemplation of an uncertain future. All his life, he had immediate or long-term plans, and shaped his actions in their context. Or he just lived in the present and didn’t think of much else. 

Maybe his decades-old plan of taking the Shack completely off the power grid could come to fruition after all this time. Or maybe…

\--

“Stanford, get your ass off the roof and go to bed.” Stan angrily yelled from the front lawn in his bathrobe.

Ford whirled around in surprise, unoccupied hand moving to hover over his holstered gun before seeing Stanley and remembering everything that happened within the past month or so. He raised the hand holding a half-complete motherboard in annoyance.

“I’m a little busy Stan, maybe later.” He got right back to work only to be broken out of it again by a pinecone hitting the back of his head. The man turned again.

“Stanley!”

“What the hell are you even  _ doing _ up there?”

Ford looked from the technology clutched in his hand to the partially-connected satellite dish on the corner of the ‘SHACK’ sign, then back to Stan.

“Is it not obvious?”

“When it comes to you, nothing is obvious, Poindexter. An average Joe might be rigging up cable, but for all I know you could be tapping into government surveillance or some shit.”

Ford blinked. “Remarkable guess, Stanley. Now let me work.”

“ _ No.  _ It’s 3:30 in the fucking  _ am, _ Ford. I really, really don’t want to, but I  _ will _ physically drag your wrinkly ass off. My. Fucking. Sign.”

“Stan, I’m not in the mood for your jests. It can’t be later than 8:30  _ pm _ , because Mabel came down right after dinner,” Ford frowned and put a hand to his chin in contemplation “And I needed to complete a project, then I started another one, and I’ve been building this for… wait, the children should still be awake. Watch your language, Stanley!” 

“I don’t have to watch my goddamn anything, because the kids went to bed  _ hours _ ago, because it’s an ungodly hour of the morning!” Stan’s voice rose and Ford flinched, causing him to quiet down again. “If you don’t believe me, don’t you have some stupid hi-tech digital watch thing?”

“Oh yeah-” Ford rolled up his sleeve. “That I do. Why didn’t you tell me? And it’s  _ 3:37? _ Stan, why didn’t you tell me?”

Stan was about to retort before realizing arranging deck chairs on a metaphorical Titanic would be a better use of his time and energy. And he was a tired, tired old man.

The only reason he was awake himself was out of a habit formed over three decades.

“Could you just- come down?” Stan massaged a spot in between his eyes. 

“Fine, fine, just let me-” Ford placed his tools in a box, leaving the half-rigged, half-built satellite dish up, and slid down the roof shingles before falling the two stories and landing in a roll, much to Stan’s angry fright.

“What the fuck?”

“I dropped the ladder I had used to get up there.”

“ _ What the fuck?” _

“I’m well aware of your opinion on ladders, Stan, but it’s completely illogical not to own one.”

“You know what? You  _ know what? _ ” Stan hooked an arm around Ford’s lower back and proceeded to pull him inside, forcing him to drop the toolbox on the porch. “Whatever. Just go. To. Bed.” He then shoved Ford into his bedroom, newly furnished with an actual bed, and glared until his twin took off his coat, boots, and holster (it still hurt to know carrying a firearm around was the only way Ford felt remotely safe, and that pain sharpened briefly at the sight of him putting it on the floor within easy reach) and laid down. Stan didn’t bother telling him to take off his glasses, it was either sleep with glasses or no sleep at all.

Stan then trudged off to his own room, and with a jolt realized he hadn’t seen Ford touch the coffeemaker  _ at all _ since the late afternoon.

\--

The next day, Stan caught Ford asking Mabel for more of her juice, and that was how sparkles and sugar packets, the prime ingredients, were banned from the Shack for a week.

  
Upon finding a half-built nuclear generator in the basement he didn’t remember starting, and schematics for something completely different scribbled on the wall- not even on some of the perfectly good blueprint paper he had, just the  _ wall-  _ he didn’t remember drawing, Ford figured that had probably been the correct move.

**Author's Note:**

> Yep. That's that. 
> 
> It was probably obvious I don't know shit about inventing, wires, or anything electronic really.
> 
> Feel free to comment telling me how much of a mess this was. I don't even know where in the canon it would take place. I had fun at least, I love random oneshots


End file.
